Book of the Month: September 2018

Offered Books:

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

The Mermaid & Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

November Road by Lou Berney

#FashionVictim by Amina Akhtar

Selected:

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

Others Purchased:

None - yet

Sometimes a book sticks with you long after you have read it.  Maybe not all the details, or even all the characters, but the story imprints on you so much that you know it will be something you read again throughout the years.  This category of book is a special one - books that will last you a lifetime are the best ones to read, though this is, sadly, not a universal experience for any book.  However, Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls is one of those books for me.

The books follows Briseis - a former queen of a small nation conquered by the Greeks and now the forced concubine for Achilles as the Greek army attacks Troy.  Told entirely from her perspective, it expands on the Trojan War story that so many are familiar with by allowing one of the many woman who are ignored in the original tale to have a voice.

This is not a happy novel: Briseis is a prisoner, and though her relationships with Achilles and Patrocles warm throughout, it never glosses over or forgets that fact.  Still, it is not a parade of misery as Briseis learns how to survive her situation and bears witness to several major events from the original text.

Barker walks a tightrope of expanding the original story without taking it too far away from it.  Several of the major events are given interesting originations through this novel by virtue of allowing a character ignored in it to tell their side of it.  I'm not sure it works every single time - I'd say she tries to explain the Patrocles/Achilles relationship without committing to either of the popular interpretations of it, to the novel's detriment.  But this is a minor quibble at best.

For me, this is an easy recommendation to anyone who likes Greek legends and modern takes on them.  For anyone who enjoyed Circe, this should scratch that particular itch.  I'm not sure I'd say this is a better novel than that one, but I definitely connected to it more.

4.5 out of 5

Author Links:

Pat Barker